CLIMATE
Lela Sadler
4th grade
Geography
PURPOSE:
To familiarize students with climate - what climate is, what makes it up, how it affects us, and how it differs within our region and between our neighborhood
and others.
CONNECTION TO THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY STANDARDS:
No. 1: To know and understand how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial
perspective. By looking at maps on the internet and in various other places (such as the news forecast), students will practice obtaining and processing information
from them. Students will also ‘create’ their own class climate map, with each student being
assigned to represent a city.
No. 4: To know and understand the physical and human characteristics of places. The physical characteristics in terms of climate of a place will be examined i
ndividually by students and then combined in order to compare locally to regionally and nationally. The students will also begin a daily weather log to track the
local changes.
No. 7: To know and understand the physical processes that shape the patterns of the earth’s surface. The effect of weather and climate on the area will be examined,
as will different climates in terms of precipitation and temperature.
OBJECTIVES:
Students will demonstrate their ability:
1. To compare weather conditions in other areas to their own, and also the
changing conditions of their own area.
2. To map the conditions of an area in comparison to other areas.
3. To use resources such as the Internet to find information on climate.
4. To understand the effect of climate on the life and inhabitants of a region.
5. To learn to use the Internet for weather information.
OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION:
This unit will be based around the discovery of climate through local daily
observation and through observation and information gleaning through the
Internet and other available sources. The students will ‘mark’ their progress
as the map of the country becomes more colorful and cluttered with colored
squares that represent different topics of study for the day. The students
will also begin a daily weather log of local conditions to be kept up with
through the end of the year.
PROCEDURES:
PERIOD 1 : INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE
Sponge activity / Opening- Allow the class a short trip outside to experience
the day’s weather. Before they go out, ask them to take a pencil and paper
to record words to describe what the weather is like outside.
Guided discussion / Activities - When they come back in, have them call out
their words while you make a list in the categories of temperature, wind,
and precipitation, plus any others as the need arises. (Put the words in
these categories, but do not title them.) Have the students figure out
how you have classified the words. Begin a daily weather log. Ask specific
questions about the weather. Have each student record the temperature outside,
the condition of the wind, and the state of precipitation. Let them know that
this will be a daily activity to go in their journal.
Begin a discussion on climate - how it has to do with weather. (Climate is the
average weather conditions of a region.) Hand out five different colored
one inch squares to each student. Have them label the squares with rain, snow,
wind, clouds, and temperature. (For example, everyone labels the blue square as
rain, the orange square as temperature, etc.) Instruct the students to
save their colored squares until the day that the class discusses that topic.
Next, assign each student a city in the United States and help them find it
on an enlarged map in your classroom. Mark each city with a thumbtack on
the map, or with a colored circle around it. Explain to the students that
they will be given an opportunity to find out information on the climate of
their city on the Internet, beginning the next class period, given an address
plus all the assistance necessary.
Feedback / Closure - Going back to the intro activity, ask students if the words
they used to describe the weather conditions outside would apply to most days
in this area, and if they would apply to many other areas at the present time.
Challenge them to watch the weather on the news tonight (if they have a TV)
or listen to the report on the radio if they can catch it and compare other
conditions in other areas, or the changing conditions in our area.
PERIOD 2: TEMPERATURE, INTERNET
Sponge/ Intro- Ask the students about the forecast for our area and in
comparison to the nation and even the world if any of the students have
(or if you have) the information.
Activity- Have the computers set up on the internet and on the intellicast
home page, where the students will find the places to go to get climate and
weather information on their cities.
USA Weather: http://www.intellicast.com/weather/usa/
Discuss temperature, beginning with the words that were used last period when
the students thought of words to describe the weather. Continue on to
discuss what the students think of first when they think of Hawaii or
Alaska (most likely, if you ask them to relate it to climate, it will relate
to the temperature). Temperature is measured with thermometers, just like we
measured the temperature for today outside.
Feedback / Closure - Let the students explore the website and obtain the
relevant information for their city or region. Ask them to put key terms
or figures on their small squares of construction paper in order that they
can remember important information for when we discuss the map on the last
day, but to also put more detailed information on a sheet that they will keep
for their own information and reference. Ask them to concentrate on
temperature for today, but if they have time, they can look up information
for the other topics on their colored squares for their city if they have time.
(Explain to them that time will be given every day for research on their city.)
PERIOD 3: PRECIPITATION
Sponge/ Intro - Play the “Rain Game”- in a large room or on the concrete slab
outside, have assorted colors of construction paper taped around, one for each
student. Let each student stand on a sheet of construction paper with their
arms outstretched. Tell them they are going to pretend they are a small cloud
drop being blown about by the wind. When you say go, the students move from
their piece of paper to another of the same color, keeping their arms outstretched.
Each time one student touches another, they link hands to become a larger cloud drop. If students from two
different colors collide, they go to the nearest color of paper and claim it as
their new color. When a group has five people in it, they have formed a whole
raindrop and they should go to the puddle area and sit down. (The puddle area
is marked off out of the bounds of the cloud area.)
Discussion - Use the game to bring students into a discussion on rain. It forms
from tiny droplets (smaller than raindrops) that make up clouds. When enough of
those tiny droplets come together, they fall as a raindrop.
Ask: What other kinds of precipitation are there? (Precipitation means falling
down, and the precipitation of water means water falling in some form.) Snow,
sleet, hail-water in solid form, rain- water in liquid form. Ask students what
kinds of precipitation has occurred recently in our area. Is there any major
precipitation in the news? This can lead to a discussion on the water cycle as
the teacher draws a simple representation of the water cycle on the board, or
on a sheet of butcher paper on the wall (use the textbook as a guide,
or refer to the attachment). Compare the water cycle to an endless chain of
buckets where water is taken continually taken up and then emptied again.
Activity- Allow students time to research their assigned city in terms of
annual precipitation, or if that is not available, the precipitation forecast.
While some students work, if there are not enough computers, or if something
else goes wrong, have the students illustrate a diagram of the water cycle,
looking at an example. Students can work individually or in pairs on this.
At the end of class, or throughout the class, have the students come up to
the map and tack their precipitation information square near their city.
PERIOD 4: CLOUDS
Sponge/ Intro - Have labeled pictures of clouds for the class to look at. Take
the pictures outside and let the students look at the clouds (if there are any)
and ask them to categorize the clouds they see.
Activity- Discuss with the class how clouds are messengers of weather.
The different types of clouds are good predictors of what kind of weather there
will be. Before all of the fancy weather forecasting computers and equipment,
weathermen had to rely a lot more on what the sky looked like, what temperature
and pressure it was outside, etc. The computers make the forecasts a lot more
reliable. If there is time, the students might enjoy seeing the cloud catalog
on the Internet using the classroom computer and LCD projector. There are
many different clouds pictured there with nice photographs.
PERIOD 5: WIND AND READING OUR CLIMATE MAP
MATERIALS:
5 different colors of construction paper, plus enough for the rain game
thumbtacks
markers
map of the United States to enlarge on opaque projector?
classroom computer with Internet capability and an LCD projector
computer lab with Internet capability
outside thermometer
something to mark off the boundaries for the rain game, and a place for
a puddle area
APPENDIX: (Not available on this site)
Climate with George the Geographer (hyperstudio stack)
Water cycle diagram
Weather legends chart
EXTENSIONS:
Compare and interpret maps and photographs to explain how physical processes
affect the features of the earth’s surface. obtained a good amount of information
on their city, have them write about what they might like or dislike about
living in that city. Try to find pictures and information other than just on
climate to broaden their base of knowledge.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
USA Weather: http://www.intellicast.com/weather/usa/
This is the Internet site that the class will be using to get all sorts of
weather condition information during class on their cities. It has many
different maps available.
The Weather Unit: http://faldo.atmos.uiuc.edu/w_unit/weather.html
This is a site for teachers. It has weather related units for many different
subject areas. I got the climate map of the United States idea (with the
little squares) from here, plus some other things.
Athena, Weather and Atmosphere: http://athena.wednet.edu/curric/weather/pricloud/index.html
This leads to the cloud catalog site. It’s fun!
Ludlum, David M. The Weather Factor. Houghton Mifflin, 1984.
How weather influences history, answers to many ‘trivial’
questions that might be interesting to children, consequences
of weather.
Milgrom, Harry. Understanding Weather. The Macmillan Company, 1970.
This book is written on a child’s level and would be good to have as
a reference book for children to look at.
Created 5/2/97
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